Corporate and international trade lobbyists who’ve sought to spare their clients from President Donald Trump’s signature tariffs don’t expect a reprieve after the Supreme Court’s decision to strike them down, only a moving target for one of K Street’s hottest topics.
Fighting tariffs and seeking carve outs from them have been a huge driver of lobbying business during Trump’s second term. Lobbyists said they don’t expect it to go away, as companies and industries now seek refunds—or work to fend off new tariffs that rely on different laws than the one the Supreme Court said didn’t give the president the power.
“We’re in for a different kind of discussion, but certainly it’s going to be as robust as we’ve had over the past year, if not more,” said Everett Eissenstat, a partner at Squire Patton Boggs, and former senior aide at the Office of the US Trade Representative and on Capitol Hill.
Trump used tariffs as a negotiating tool to broker trade talks and agreements with other countries, leaving some of those arrangements in question, lobbyists said.
“Right now, 50-odd countries around the world are asking: ‘Do I need to keep my commitments now?’” said Samir Kapadia, head of trade at the Vogel Group.
Lobbyists also said the Supreme Court would put more pressure on the president’s State of the Union address planned for Tuesday.
“This decision makes the State of the Union must-see TV,” said GOP lobbyist Mark Williams, a partner at Ferox Strategies. “Everyone in Washington is now in wait-and-see mode to find out how the administration responds.”
Republicans in Congress will be under pressure to potentially work to codify the president’s tariff agenda, putting increasing focus on Capitol Hill.
New Tariffs?
Absent new laws from Congress, companies are asking how durable other justifications for replacement tariffs might be, including those imposed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.
Industries and companies also have begun to seek lobbying guidance about potential refunds.
“Companies are going to be charging to Washington to get back that $600 billion that the federal government collected last year,” Kapadia said.
That is unlikely to be a straight-forward process, he and others said.
“Without question, the lobbying industry will benefit from this decision because every company— small, medium, and large—will be calling their Washington representatives figuring out how to get their money back,” Kapadia said.
Hunter Morgen, a lobbyist at Ballard Partners and former special assistant to Trump, said the White House had a backup package ready to go that could come out soon.
“It’s calm, cool and collected at the White House, and they’re ready to go as soon as today,” said Morgen, adding “my phone is ringing off the hook” with calls from clients.
“There’s a lot of questions – the biggest is what’s going to happen with the refunds because the court was so vague on that,” he added. “We know the tariff regime is not going away.”
The Advancing American Freedom Foundation, a group started by former Vice President Mike Pence, found that lobbying revenue tied to tariffs went up nearly 500% in the fourth quarter of last year when compared with the fourth quarter of 2024, drawing on public lobbying disclosures. The group has argued against the tariffs in Trump’s second term and issued a report that said it showed the levies benefit K Street lobbyists but hurt Main Street businesses and regular voters.
The number of entities that disclosed lobbying on tariffs in the fourth quarter of 2025 was up 200% when compared with the fourth quarter of 2024, a Bloomberg Government analysis found.
Big Business Fight
“The Supreme Court’s decision is welcome news for businesses and consumers” said
“Swift refunds of the impermissible tariffs will be meaningful for the more than 200,000 small business importers in this country and will help support stronger economic growth this year,” he said.
Bradley added that his group, which has been sometimes at odds with Republicans on trade and other maters, was urging the GOP “to use this opportunity to reset overall tariff policy in a manner that will lead to greater economic growth, larger wage gains for workers, and lower costs for families.”
More than 1,000 companies, such as
Lobbies representing industry sectors, including alcoholic beverages, focused on specific levies and urged the administration to spare their members.
Chris Swonger, president and CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council, said in a statement that his group urged the administration to permanently return to “zero-for-zero tariffs on spirits products with our major trading partners,” such as in the European Union and the United Kingdom.
Trump has frequently defended his tariffs and has said they had improved national security.
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